42

One of the better gap-fillers of the past three seasons, 42 is really a paler version of last year's seasonal peak, The Impossible Planet. It lacks the latter's detail and scenario, and characterisations, hinting at a reprise of the same supernatural menace, but rather strangely taking a sidestep away and avoiding being the Snakedance to Impossible's Kinda. This is a bit confusing as not only does 42 very much look like Impossible Planet, simply re-alligning the latter episode's scenario of a space station hurtling towards a black hole with an equally sweaty spaceship hurtling towards a distant sun, but the menacing 'burn with me' catchphrase also mirrors uncannily the 'don't turn round' chiller of Impossible Planet's Sutekh-esque invisible menace. But this time, instead of a disturbingly tattooed possessed crew member with red eyes, we have various possessees donning 2001-style space helmets and opening visors sporadically to emit leathel sun-rays on the victims. We also again have subtle allusions to Sutekh of the classic Pyramids of Mars with one of the possessed killing a crew member by clutching their face while smoke steams out seemingly from his hands.

Mostly this episode was well done, looked good, and served its purpose - that purpose being to my mind to simply plug a gap between stronger episodes (assuming Human Nature is going to live up to our expectations that is, which I think it will). This episode really only serves a purpose in its own right at showing the Doctor in an unusually powerless position, thus emphasizing his mortal vulnerability to fly in the face of the 'lonely God/immortal wanderer' spin of the new series so far. The Doctor is after all mortal, in spite of his Timelord makeup; he can only regenerate 12 times as all older fans know, so no harm in showing for once how he can sometimes be out of his depth and actually have to rely on a lesser mortal, ie his companion, to get him out of the fix. The scenes in which the Doctor is possessed and clearly in severe pain and distress are very well handled here, though I feel go overboard, and are not to my mind suitable for children to watch. I think 42 pushed out the boat of horror just a little too far, and I personally think this is because it had to, as the episode itself is weak and rather empty. The karmic element is refreshing (also slightly reminiscent of the incomparably deeper and more compelling Kinda of the Davison era), and was actually a nice little philosophical and moral twist to the episode. One might look on this as a comment on man's abuse of his environment, of the sun, and of nuclear energy.

42's script lacked generally, though was, broadly-speaking, adequate for what it was trying to do. The characters had little room to develop, with Michelle Collins's rather blanched portrayal being redemed ultimately only by her attoning self-sacrifice.

The script slipped up badly in places, especially with the ludicrous 'Come on my son!' from the Doctor as he struggled to save the day in possibly his most excrutiatingly desperate setting yet - so, very bad scripting there. The silly question about who had the most number ones, the Beatles or Elvis, was initially treated quite well with the crew member reading it pronouncing Beatles as Be-atles and referring to the subject as classical music. But having the Doctor brainstorming for the answer as if in a surreal pub quiz, and remembering the recent Elvis remix, was frankly embarrassing.

The scene in the escape pod provided the token 'still moment' in the adrenalin-pumping episode, but really served no purpose except to attempt some depth with Martha, and rather jarred with the real time pace of the rest of the story.

I'm assuming the crisis endured by the Doctor in this particularly trying episode is to lead in to his subsequent need to seek a new, quieter life and identity in the upcoming two-parter, so in this sense 42 has a place in the season. But frankly any past incarnation put through the same amount of pain as the 10th is in this episode would have inevitably regenerated (remember the 3rd Doctor's draining by the crystal on Metabelis in Planet of Spiders and the 5th's ravaging by spectrox in Caves of Androzani?).

All in all an acceptable episode, well-executed but ultimately rather limp and unsatisfying. A missed opportunity I think, as if you are going to duplicate a previous episode so obviously (ie Impossible Planet) you may as well make some sort of sequal and further develop the original through it. Instead we had what feels like a bit of a repeat session, but with a less satisfying plot. Nevertheless, 42 is still poles apart from the first two episodes of the season, both of which are still inexplicably lauded by many reviewers on this site - (I will simply never understand the appeal of The Shakespeare Code, which is to my mind the worst episode so far this season, and the biggest jingoistic sell out of new Who so far).

42 = 5/10.